Any Sonic characters and places mentioned belong to SEGA, 2015. Only one character in this story belongs to me, and it won't be too hard to find them.

This is really my first major stab at a serious series; it's all about GUN, its antics, and its agents trials and tribulations in the eyes of an aspiring journalist. (A Sonic OC. Oh my.)

Hope you enjoy it, thank you for reading, and any and all feedback is highly welcomed, praise or critique. Thank you for your consideration with this story, and I hope you enjoy Drowning In Koi Pond.

-BAA

"All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

-(*)-

It has been said that writing takes you on a journey you will never forget.

I can highly vouch for this statement.

The white bat I rode with held her leader with tears streaming down her face as she screamed for help. Her suit was tattered, and her face was mottled with soot and the blood of both her and the hedgehog in her arms, who was fading all too quickly. Their artillery fired at nothing, at the threat that couldn't be touched.

The bastard that allowed me to come here roared for an explanation, and with the pager in my hand, all I could do was stare at what I had caused. All I needed was a story, and damn did I get it.

Sirens blared in the distance, and Rouge tried to wail over them, imploring them to come. But no one did. Omega fired a flare in the midst of the destruction, the flames. No one answered to it. And Shadow?

"Shadow? Come on, come on…"

She couldn't believe it.

No one came for him.

All I could do was stand in the smoky twilight and observe, and my, my, my.

What a mesmerizing journey this was that I, the journalist, could spread for miles in this endless ocean of explosions, while the relief and the help stayed at bay.

I could never forget how it all began.

(*)

While waiting for the doors to open, I gazed at the koi pond in the front yard. Every now and again, a fish would come up to the surface to blub for air, only to whoosh downward into the murky depths of the pond. It was twilight, and every flick of a silvery fish's tail was mesmerizing, especially in the reflection of the stars.

The pond was infinite, as far as I was concerned.

"I see you've noticed my koi pond. Peaceful, aren't they? Those fish…"

My head immediately turned back towards the doorway, where I saw the man, perfectly still as the brick that held his mansion together, welcome me into his home. The fish swam through my mind as I hesitantly accepted the invitation.

When I stepped through the double doors of the GUN commander's abode, my joints immediately loosened after days and months on end of cramming themselves into a small three-by-three cubicle in a stuffy, loud printing press that reeked of cigar smoke and was stuffed to the brim with the incessant clamoring of keyboards and a solitary fax machine. I did, however, walk stiffly through the entrance, clenching my hands around the ends of my jacket with pure intimidation.

"Follow me," the commander's different-colored eyes glinted against the chandelier above us, his broad jawline shadowing the rest of his neck. I nodded quietly, afraid the sharpness of his gaze could fatally kill me at any second.

He walked ahead of me without a hair out of place. Steady pace, almost like a march, silently conducting me to do the same along the polished maple. One step a second. Left, clop. Right, clop. I mimicked him in the hopes of blending myself in, even though, with my rugged jacket and khakis that barely treaded the line of formal, I stood out like a sore, infected, profusely bleeding hand in the middle of the stoic elegance of the commander's mansion.

Along the way, he went on about how he loved his little pond. I think. I zoned out due to the blinding, surreal atmosphere.

We stopped in his dining room after a trek through riches. The ceiling was taller than life and the floor expanded into walls adorned with deep reds and golden frames, family members that never lived here. The table was roughly five feet horizontally, topped with two bowls of salad, a cup of tomato soup, and two pieces of garlic bread to pair each meal on a saucer. He left me to sit on the right end of the table. Gesturing at the side, he said, "I already set up everything. Sit."

I glanced at him, turning to the left side of the table. I quietly took my seat, peering down at the bottomless abyss of lettuce and onions.

"I don't believe in animal slaughter," he explained as I gingerly lifted up my fork, "I've been a vegetarian since I was a child. Personal choice. I do hope you don't mind it."

With a furrowed brow, I shook my head at him. The fact I could step into his mansion alone made me not at all mind the fact I wasn't having angus that night.

"I have some balsamic right here," he lifted up a bottle that was positioned right next to a shining bottle of merlot, "Do help yourself to it."

He poured some in his salad, mixing it afterwards with his fork softly, soundly. I pricked my fork inside the salad, able to obtain some carrot strands. I nibbled with simple delight.

After placing the bottle down, the commander picked up the merlot, tipping the bottle over an empty wine glass that was before his bowl of soup and let the wine flow in like a gentle river. Nothing about him was messy, and his actions, albeit simple, were straighter than blades.

"Care for some?" the commander held the bottle towards me, displaying it like a waiter to his guests.

Holoska Dawn, 20XX

I shook my head, explaining how I couldn't drink.

"Oh, that's right," he appeared, for the first time, embarrassed as I reached for a water pitcher, "I forgot you were seventeen. Forgive me."

Once more, I assured him I was fine. Calmly, I raised my glass, as he raised his; I believe I lost tension when the commander first proved he was a human and, in fact, not a robot.

"Cheers," he stated warmly, and we both took a sip of our legal beverage of choice. The food was nowhere near as glamourous as the abode, but it was filling all the same. The carrots were delectable at least. The commander ate he prepared, but instead drank the fermented juice of Holoska.

"I still have your letter," the commander, after a few minutes of one-sided silent dining, took out a slip of paper from the front pocket of his uniform shirt. "Why I invited you to join me for dinner tonight."

That letter.

To Commander Abraham Tower,

I'm writing to politely inquire if I may write about the Guardian Unit of Nations for a story that's due in just a little over a month. I've just started on the field and am fresh out of the academy, only seventeen years of age and had graduated top ten percent of my class, and my fellow journalists still believe that I don't have any business in the field. I hope that, through this story and your brilliantly courageous guidance, that I may prove them wrong.

I, along with several citizens of the United Federation, have acknowledged the power and selflessness of your agency, whose agents put their lives on the line daily for the sake of protecting the president and his citizens. Not many, however, are familiar with the rigorous lives of the agents and what they must live with.

Which is why I am writing this to you. I would hope to join some agents in your organization for approximately one month and document their endeavors in the hopes of capturing the lives of the people who save us all everyday from potential destruction, embrace their history and admire their work even further. No one in this press will have ever done anything like this, and, frankly, this is my last chance to show my editor and my colleagues that investing in me, a "rookie" fresh out of school, is not a mistake.

You have said in your memoir that, "…in order to change the world for the better, you must first change the game." That is what I plan to do.

I hope you may reply to me at your earliest convenience, and I'll be honored by any reply I may receive.

Warm regards,

Sterling the Raccoon

Opal Printing Press, 56th District, Westopolis, 56-7

August, 34XX

It took me five days to write and edit and throw away and rewrite that letter.

It took him one to reply with a dinner invitation.

The next week, there we were, on opposite ends of the table, of anxiety. My feet were tapping spastically, while he was slowly morphing into a statue.

"So," the commander swirled the glass in his hand, calmly asking, "You want to follow my agents for a month on the field?"

I nodded quickly, biting my lip as I did. This was an intimidating man. He lead the agency for over twenty years, and the agency itself had the darkest history imaginable. A history of scandal, of corruption, of conspiracy, of murder.

Murder.

Silence.

His glance.

"You don't talk much, do you?"

It could kill me at any moment.

I noticed that I only spoke three times since I stepped through the doors: quickly saying hello, quietly expressing my gratitude for his welcome, and murmuring why I couldn't partake in merlot. Hesitantly, I let out a stifled chuckle and shook my head. He smiled a smile that promised comfort, yet I still felt needles were jabbing my mind, and it wasn't just the incessant, piercing ramblings of a fax machine that echoed in my brain.

"Well," he promised, "There's no trouble with that. You're a writer. That's how you get your words out," he softly chuckled after taking a sip of his wine, "At least you get them out somehow."

I tried to direct my focus to somewhere else. Carrots. I picked up my fork and made it serve as a shovel. Yeah, yeah, carrots are good.

"So I've thought over your letter this past week," he slowly took a sip from his glass as I stuffed my mouth with the salad. It tasted like nothing. I felt my stomach curl in its emptiness, and I sputtered when he finished with, "And I believe something can be arranged."

I stared at him. His eyes.

They actually looked warm. Inviting. The romaine had an extremely difficult time going down; I forgot there was soup on the table.

"I know what it's like, being the underdog and having something to prove," he snickered, looking off into memories. The soup might as well had been a brick of ice, and, in a way, I wish it was so I could knock myself unconscious with it. "Hell, six years in the academy and they offered me a janitorial position at the agency before even considering me qualified to be an agent. I worked all too hard to prove that I was above scrubbing floors of agents who I saw slack in their classes, if they even went to them, anyway,"

Chuckle. I gulped every time he did.

"So it does warm me up a little whenever I see a young aspirer with something to prove to his superiors," the commander noted, "And you seem ambitious enough. Collected. Know exactly what to do."

Haha. Right. Collected, I was. Meanwhile, I was attempting to lift up my glass, and for two solid seconds of time, I forgot how to drink water. Even his support made me weak, and it was amazing that he didn't notice how truly terrified I was that any of this worked.

"Here's what I'll have you do," he took out three cards from his front pocket, each uniformly cut in a crisp, sharp rectangle. "Tomorrow, come to the agency, and I'll have you meet three agents of mine. Best in the field, each having extensive knowledge of the agency and what we do, and know very much of both our allies and our adversaries. They're highly experienced, respected, and should tell you and show you what you'll need to know. I would be surprised if you didn't already know them."

In one swift motion, he took the cards and put them face-up, sliding them across the table towards me. In an abrupt slam, I put the glass down, with my eyes widening at each card. They were agent ID's that were too fantastical to be just ID's.

E-123 Omega-#11243

Artillery of "Team Dark"

UF, District 56, Station Square Division

Rouge the Bat-#11237

Co-Leader/Correspondent of "Team Dark"

UF, District 56, Station Square Division

Shadow the Hedgehog-#11240

Squad Leader of "Team Dark"

UF, District 56, Station Square Division

Next to each description was a picture of each, from the shoulder upward. The first had not but two large, red headlights beaming directly at the camera, the second had a playful smirk, and the third had slim to no emotion at all. They were staring.

Staring at me.

Carrots tasted awful.

The air turned into a single axe that swiped my head clean off, and the elegant, all-too-giving world around me started to fade away.

Feeling like a fish out of water, I drowned in disbelief. Down, down, down I went.

"Son?" the commander stood up, and, in a haze, I saw him quickly pace around the table towards me. "Are you alriiii…"

Drowning.

How mesmerizing it all was.